=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EDline Vol. 7, no. 79 (13 March 2002) Editorial mailing list (digest version) Published by the Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Contents: Q & A [2td] Imply / infer [Offshoot of [2ta] "Disinterested" and "masterful"] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ---[2]-- Q & A -------------------------------------------------- ** [2td] Imply / infer [Offshoot of [2ta] "Disinterested" and "masterful"] Date: Fri, 8 March 2002 From: Esther Shchory, odelias@bezeqint.net Anna Beth McCormack wrote: > 'Imply' and 'infer' are not at all the same thing and should be > used distinctively. I totally agree. I find these two words to be invaluable and enjoy using them because the difference is so subtle yet distinct. I dislike non-intentional ambiguity. But this is not the first time I have heard a supposed learned scholar claim that only it is pure linguistic elitism to differentiate between them. First I have nothing against elitism, in small doses. But more worrying is the fact that the modern tendency to "dumbing down" seems to have 'fuzzied' even the most scholarly minds so that such a distinct directional difference is no longer even perceived. At school my English teacher was very insistent that we learn the difference between disinterested and uninterested. These differences are necessary to clarify the language and should not be nullified because people are too lazy to take a couple of minutes to refer to a dictionary. Judy Stein wrote: > Well, the fact that there are converse terms that are > interchangeable in some dialects isn't what I'd consider a > justification for allowing *all* converse terms to become > interchangeable. The joy of slang and dialects is there misuse of grammar. Remove the rule, remove the joy. ----------------------- Date: Sat, 9 March 2002 From: Simon Cauchi, cauchi@wave.co.nz I don't want to contribute any more to this continuing EDline debate about the so-called misuse of words like "disinterested" and "infer", but let me comment briefly on two of Esther Schory's more general remarks: > But this is not the first time I have heard a supposed learned > scholar claim that only it is pure linguistic elitism to > differentiate between them. First I have nothing against > elitism, in small doses. But more worrying is the fact that the > modern tendency to "dumbing down" seems to have 'fuzzied' even > the most scholarly minds so that such a distinct directional > difference is no longer even perceived. Presumably Esther didn't actually read my earlier post in which I quoted at length from Peter Trudgill's essay in Language Myths, and presumably she knows nothing of his work. If she did, she would know that he is a genuinely learned scholar (one of the leading linguistics experts in Britain, indeed) and that in his argument he didn't say or even imply anything about linguistic elitism. And she would also know that his mind cannot in any sense be described as "fuzzied" or "dumbed down". On the contrary, he uses his very sharp mind to bring positive evidence and reasonable argument to discussions that far too often lack them. > At school my English teacher was very insistent that we learn > the difference between disinterested and uninterested. These > differences are necessary to clarify the language and should > not be nullified because people are too lazy to take a couple > of minutes to refer to a dictionary. Many of our most cherished beliefs about language were instilled into us at an impressionable age by English teachers at school. Unfortunately, what they taught us is quite often wrong or at any rate highly dubious and debatable. Nor will consulting a dictionary always give support to those cherished beliefs. The more up-to-date the dictionary, the more likely it is to record (with or without a usage note by way of guidance) those newer senses of words that your English teacher would have disapproved of. ----------------------- Date: Sat, 9 March 2002 From: John Crane, jcrane8@bellsouth.net Simon Cauchi wrote: > Many of our most cherished beliefs about language were > instilled into us at an impressionable age by English teachers > at school. Unfortunately, what they taught us is quite often > wrong or at any rate highly dubious and debatable.... So should we imply from this that when a judge is disinterested in a case he's bored stiff? Agree that much of what we're taught in school is dubious. Agree that dictionaries are of limited use. Don't agree that we shouldn't distinguish between the meanings of words. ----------------------- Date: Sat, 9 March 2002 From: Esther Shchory, odelias@bezeqint.net Simon In answer to your reply I did read your earlier post and although I have not read Peter Trudgill's essay I have read several others by English scholars who have used almost exactly the same arguments and have then gone on to claim that differentiating between such terms is elitism. I have quite a thorough knowledge and experience of the English education system and am well aware that such positions are frequently a question of fashion. Mr Trudgill maybe different and I would be happy to read his essay but since I was not specifically referring to him I do think that you have mistakenly taken my comments as a personal affront. Despite what Mr Trudgill et. al. would like to argue there still exists a difference between infer/imply, disinterested/ uninterested and therefore my English teacher has proved to an outstanding example of good scholarship in that he taught us to inquire into the meanings of the words we use, with dictionaries and forums such as this, rather than learning his opinion by rote and sticking to it blindly whatever. ------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 March 2002 From: Chuck Brandstater, acreatyv1@earthlink.net John Crane wrote in part: > should we imply from this that when a judge is disinterested in > a case he's bored stiff? Not exactly (as "imply" tends not to have the meaning this question infers). The judge's conduct might imply/infer it, or with his words he might do so; more likely, it or he would imply/infer that he had grown disinterested in the case, or perhaps that he had originally been very interested but now was most disinterested (that is, the "dis" may be used to express evolution or to impart greater emphasis than "un" would). Peter suggests that a usage which, excuse me, that, involves an overlapping meaning is just as wrong as using "censor" for "sensor" or "diffuse" for "defuse"; obviously, I don't consider the two "sins" to be comparable (it's only the misspellings that I would call sloppy). John also wrote (omitting the subject, the omission being acceptable in this context): > Don't agree that we shouldn't distinguish between the meanings > of words. For each of these word pairs, as is so often the case, the supposed distinction has been "blurred" for generations. It's fine for us each to edit in a way which (sorry, that) abides by the *usual* distinctions as understood in *this* generation, but let's not exaggerate our role here. ------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 March 2002 From: Peter Best, pbest@idl.net.au And of course, if we surrender to sloppy usage on the grounds of "inclusion" then we might as well adopt a purely phonetic approach to the written word and abandon any attempt at precision or subtlety in language. Take these two neat examples from a major regional daily. "there are 50 or so little censors on the machine" "BOMB SQUAD : Diffusing toxic workplace cultures" ( Ad. for an accredited professional training course.) ------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 March 2002 From: Damaris Wilson, Wilsondidi@aol.com I'm with Esther and John on this, though I realise it's going against the flow; and I have read Trudgill, years ago while reading Linguistics, but... I fail to see how recording current usage can make incorrect terminology / spelling correct? Surely, a misused word is still wrong, and perpetuating a bad habit will never make it right. One of the glories of language is the possibility for subtle variation, and our ability to add variety to discourse. Do we want to descend to the blandness of 'the cat sat on the mat' writing? I'm all for simple, succinct speech, but a little elaboration can often clear up ambiguity, for instance. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Nick Hudson, hudson@c031.aone.net.au FWIIW. here are my guidelines: (1) It would be sad if we lost the distinctions illustrated in the discussion of infer/imply and uninterested/disinterested (and dozens of others). They are useful and reasonably clearcut. Furthermore (and perhaps more important for an editor) the writer who get them 'wrong' is likely to lose face, so I would normally correct them. (2) At the same time, it is foolish to believe that every reader recognises these distinctions. If I was editing a piece which included the phrase 'Uncle Bill was disinterested and fell asleep during the proceedings' I might well warn the writer that the point might not be clear to all readers, and suggest that rewriting in unambiguous terms might be a good idea. An interesting example of a changing pair is gender/sex. Fowler was correct when he wrote that gender was a grammatical term (masculine/feminine/neuter), and use of it as a synonym for sex (male/female) was 'either a jocosity or an error'. But this was written in 1926. In the 1970s 'gender' was adopted to distinguish the social aspects of sex from the physical ones, e.g. in the phrase 'gender stereotyping'. Grammarians rose up in horror, but the world ignored us. Since then it has been downhill all the way. Fifteen years ago I heard a Senior English Mistress at a posh girls' school announce to a gathering of parents that there were 'toilets for both genders at the back of the hall', and knew that the battle was lost. Nowadays, when talking about the topic, I have to use the phrase 'grammatical gender', and I would rarely change 'gender' to 'sex' in a text I was editing, however absurd it sounded to me. The world has moved on. Lexicographers must have winced when they first reported the 'erroneous' usage of 'gender', but to have ignored the evidence would have been totally improper. Similarly, it is their duty to report that the imply/infer and uninterested/disinterested distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred. But this does not mean that these battles have been lost. Let us fight on. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Chuck Brandstater, acreatyv1@earthlink.net Damaris Wilson wrote in part (and I agree completely): > Surely, a misused word is still wrong, and perpetuating a bad > habit will never make it right. One of the glories of language > is the possibility for subtle variation, and our ability to add > variety to discourse. Do we want to descend to the blandness of > 'the cat sat on the mat' writing? I'm all for simple, succinct > speech, but a little elaboration can often clear up ambiguity, > for instance. So can declaring long-standing overlaps in meaning to be outdated or even never to have been legitimate. But doing so (if it could be done on a grand scale) would not save the language but just impoverish it. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Simon Cauchi, cauchi@wave.co.nz Nick Hudson has offered us some guidelines. I think they are very sensible, but let me comment on three points: > (1) It would be sad if we lost the distinctions illustrated in > the discussion of infer/imply and uninterested/disinterested > (and dozens of others). They are useful and reasonably > clearcut. Furthermore (and perhaps more important for an > editor) the writer who get them 'wrong' is likely to lose face, > so I would normally correct them. I too would normally propose correcting them, unless (as can happen) the use of a word in its frowned-upon sense happens to be right for the context or register or style or dialect of the piece, but even if I did propose making a change I would agree to stet the author's word choice if he or she requested it. For example, not very long ago I edited a short piece written by a former All Black captain about sport -- it was a delicate task to discriminate between those infelicities that needed to be altered and those that might or should be left unchanged. And having recently heard a senior lecturer in English saying at the launch of his book how "fortuitous" something or other was (he meant "fortunate"), and soon afterwards finding that same word "fortuitous" used in the same sense in a scholarly biography I was indexing, I suspect that writers who get these distinctions "wrong" are likely to lose face with a steadily diminishing proportion of their readers. > (2) At the same time, it is foolish to believe that every > reader recognises these distinctions. If I was editing a piece > which included the phrase 'Uncle Bill was disinterested and > fell asleep during the proceedings' I might well warn the > writer that the point might not be clear to all readers, and > suggest that rewriting in unambiguous terms might be a good > idea. I can't see any ambiguity at all in the sample sentence. Some readers would doubtless disapprove of "disinterested" here, but I don't believe any reader would mistake its meaning. > Lexicographers must have winced when they first reported the > 'erroneous' usage of 'gender', but to have ignored the evidence > would have been totally improper. Similarly, it is their duty > to report that the imply/infer and uninterested/disinterested > distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred. But this does > not mean that these battles have been lost. Let us fight on. Well said, but remember that a good strategist chooses (if possible) where and when to make a stand and where and when to retreat. If (as NODE tells us) around twenty percent of citations in the language corpora are for the disapproved-of senses of "infer" and "disinterested", then (surely?) common sense requires us editors and not only the lexicographers to accept that the two senses, old and new, now coexist. NODE, however, is less tolerant about the etymologically incorrect sense of "fortuitous", recommending that it should be avoided except in informal contexts. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au Simon Cauchi wrote: > ... then (surely?) common sense requires us editors and not > only the lexicographers to accept that the two senses, old and > new, now coexist. NODE, however, is less tolerant about the > etymologically incorrect sense of "fortuitous", recommending > that it should be avoided except in informal contexts. Aha! Isn't it (broadly) true that we learn our native language in informal contexts? Even comparatively out-of-the-way words such as "fortuitous" are first encountered in casual reading or conversation. So as soon as a shift in usage slips past the guard of the watchful editorial community, it becomes part of the source material from which people learn their language. We can't stop this, because the vast majority of "informal contexts" take place well beyond the ken of editors. Indeed, possibly most of the participants in discourse in those informal contexts are unaware that there is such an animal as an editor. (To say nothing of linguists or grammarians!) ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Judy Stein, jstein@panix.com Nick Hudson wrote: > An interesting example of a changing pair is gender/sex. Fowler > was correct when he wrote that gender was a grammatical term > (masculine/feminine/neuter), and use of it as a synonym for sex > (male/female) was 'either a jocosity or an error'. But this was > written in 1926. In the 1970s 'gender' was adopted to > distinguish the social aspects of sex from the physical ones, > e.g. in the phrase 'gender stereotyping'. Grammarians rose up > in horror, but the world ignored us. See, this is a case where it seems to me the "incorrect" use of a term has actually enriched the language. We didn't *have* a word previously to make the distinction between the social aspects of sex and the physical ones--we didn't seem to need one until recently, but now it's proving extremely useful. And the use of the word as a grammatical term hasn't been lost; it's rare that the sense in which the term is meant would be unclear from the context. So it's all gain and no loss, as far as I can see. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Michael Lewis, mlewis@brandle.com.au Indeed. But the distinction between the physical and the social is disappearing again -- because (or so it seems to me) "gender" is now being used for both; "sex" is now used only for things we probably shouldn't discuss in a family list-server... I would go so far as to say that, somehow, "sex" has become smutty. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Michele Clarke, Michele.Clarke@btinternet.com I like, some other contributors here, have found the word 'gender' very useful as a substitute for 'sex' in the epidemiological sense, particularly in a book about 'sex' in the physical sense. Otherwise some sentences look very confusing. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Drusilla Calvert, d.calvert@macrex.com Michele Clarke wrote: > I like, some other contributors here, have found the word > 'gender' very useful as a substitute for 'sex' in the > epidemiological sense Very useful for indexing, too! The entry "sex" can turn into a minefield if one isn't careful! ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Sally Lansdell, sally@lansdell.com Interestingly, I was asking my 13-year-old daughter last night what they were covering in English at the moment, and she said they had been talking about the difference between imply and infer! So maybe all is not yet lost. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: Jane Lyle, jlyle@indiana.edu Michael Lewis wrote: > Indeed. But the distinction between the physical and the social > is disappearing again -- because (or so it seems to me) > "gender" is now being used for both And around and around and around we go! The earliest noted use in the OED of "sex" to mean "Either of the two divisions of organic beings distinguished as male and female respectively" is 1380. The earliest noted use in the OED of "gender" in the grammatical sense is 1380. The earliest noted use in the OED of "gender" to mean "sex" is 1387-88. The earliest noted use in the OED of "gender" in any sense is an indeterminate date in the 1300s, with the second example from 1384. That is gender in the meaning of "kind, sort, class." Thus it isn't difficult to see how it could have been used in the same sense as "sex." "Gender" as a synonym for "sex" has not always been in fashion, but it's always been around. And now that we sometimes need a different word to distinguish one's biological sexual "kind" from one's psychological sexual "kind," it's having a resurgence--and probably is here to stay in this sense as well. ------------------------- Date: Tues, 12 March 2002 From: John Crane, jcrane8@bellsouth.net Simon Cauchi wrote: > I can't see any ambiguity at all in the sample sentence ['Uncle > Bill was disinterested and fell asleep during the proceedings'] I would have a serious stumble on that sentence trying to figure out the connection between "disinterested" and "fell asleep." If, as a reader, I'm supposed to stop at that point and figure out from the context that the writer really meant that Uncle Bill was bored and thus feel asleep, rather than being impartial and having had a poor night's rest... Well, dammit, that's just poor writing. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= END OF EDline 7.79 Admin page: < http://www.electriceditors.net/edline/admin.htm > ** The views expressed in this mailing list are strictly those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the moderators or of the Electric Editors. ** Articles (c) 2001, 2002, by individual contributors Design (c) 1996--2002 Iain Brown Compilation (c) 2002, Iain Brown / The Electric Editors =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=